“You mean your ‘proceedings,’ my dear,” grunted the Professor.
Miss Winchester at once made mental note of the Professor’s mode of ejaculation, as indicative of the Occidental grunt in contradistinction to the Asiatic.
“Miss Cultus is correct,” interrupted the Doctor, champion inquisitor and note-jotter of the party. “No brain could remember, much less assimilate, all that we are going to see, without taking notes.”
At this point they were interrupted by the call to take their places in the railway carriage at Calcutta, for their first four hours by rail to Damookdea on the Ganges.
XXXII
THE START UPWARDS
EN ROUTE from Calcutta, many villages were situated amid luxuriant bamboos, palms and grasses, where the Bengali cultivators of the soil worked hard for a portion of the year, and then during the heated term put in their time loafing, bathing in puddles, and raising children; some of the children looked as if so raised—in puddles. Life was known to ebb and flow spasmodically in that region, at times receding to the very verge of famine, only to return and overflow the country with abundance. Life was like a candle burning at both ends in days of plenty, to be followed by total darkness, where skeletons groped, wailing and gnashing their teeth.
The foliage was luxuriant, and of rapid growth; but not calculated to endure much strife with wind and storm. Very beautiful, however, were some of the compensations in nature: when the graceful banana leaves were blighted by the adverse forces, and fell limp, black, and apparently useless; in the very act of dying they fell over the clusters of fruit below, thus protecting their offspring after they themselves had returned to dust, in some cases cremated by the sun, ashes to ashes. Many human beings had no doubt sacrificed themselves in the same way, involving physical and nervous prostration, since Vishnu was the real preserver, and they were Vishnubs. A mysterious parallel. Altruism, to a certain degree, exists between plant life and humanity; and one often hears the natives speak of the transmigration of souls. Numerous birds of brilliant plumage flitted about, and rows of paroquets sat on the telegraph wires; as the natives said, reading and reporting the messages. Did not the monkeys show great wisdom and skill in constructing bridges of their own bodies for Krishna to escape by passing over? Surely birds must know something if monkeys were so wise. So also reasoned the natives, with variations, each man after his own kind.
Miss Winchester in time took down a number of the native ejaculations apropos of these things; and Mrs. Cultus, of course, reported all such facts to her special committee of the “Pet-Monkey Section” of the “Kindness to Animal League.”
“I did not know that Asia was so kind to animals,” said she. The Doctor laughed: “I fear it is a sort of ‘touch-me-not, taste-me-not’ kindness.” “More absurd proceedings,” thought the Professor. Adele did not laugh; on the contrary she was as usual much interested in children, and these people seemed to her to be in the childhood period of the human race. “They believe it all,” said Adele, “and so did I when I was in the nursery; my dolly always talked, and monkeys scared us both.”
The river Ganges was crossed at Damookdea, in the darkness, on the steamer “Vampire.” Torchlights upon the distant shore showed the river to be nearly a mile wide, the further sides rising to form low bluffs. A huge sand-bar lay opposite the primitive wharf, and had to be circumnavigated; which was made difficult by the strong current and the tortuous eddies whirling in many directions. They saw fishing-smacks etched against the sky, with their lights bobbing up and down; the nets were carried on enormous bamboo frames which shone against the lights like spider webs. The prows and sterns of the boats were pointed and rose high in peculiar curves. The same boats, seen afterwards in daylight, propelled by a single boatman, whose form showed against the blue waves, were quite as picturesque as the gondolas at Venice.